At 11:20 a.m. on Feb. 5, Lars Hedegaard answered his door bell to an apparent mailman. Instead of receiving a package, however, the 70-year-old Danish historian and journalist found himself face to face with a would-be assassin about one third his age.

The assailant shot once, narrowly missing his head. The gun locked, Hedegaard wrestled with him, and the young man fled.

Given Hedegaard’s criticism of Islam and his even being taken to court on criminal charges of “hate speech,” the attack reverberated in Denmark and beyond. The Associated Press reported this incident, which was featured prominently in the British press, including the Guardian, the Daily Mail and the Spectator, as well as in Canada’s National Post. The Wall Street Journal published an article by him about his experience.

When the New York Times belatedly bestirred itself on Feb. 28 to inform its readership about the assassination attempt, it did not so much report on the event itself but on alleged Muslim support for Hedegaard’s right to express himself.

“Muslim groups in the country, which were often criticized during the cartoon furor for not speaking out against violence and even deliberately fanning the flames, raised their voices to condemn the attack on Mr. Hedegaard and support his right to express his views, no matter how odious [emphasis added].”

And this is the theme that pervades the piece. For example, Higgins quotes Karen Haekkerup, the minister of social affairs and integration, who says he is pleased that “the Muslim community is now active in the debate.”

(For a close dissection of Higgin’s agitprop, see Diana West’s evisceration; see also Andrew Bostom’s article where he compares Higgins to Walter Duranty, the NYT reporter who whitewashed Stalin’s crimes.)

Essentially, Higgins delegitimizes Hedegaard. In addition to the snarky “no matter how odious” reference, Higgins dismisses Hedegaard’s “opinions” as “a stew of anti-Muslim bile and conspiracy-laden forecasts of a coming civil war” and claims the Dane has “fanned wild conspiracy theories and sometimes veered into calumny.”

These characterizations of Hedegaard’s work are a vicious travesty. A few specifics:

1. What Higgins airily dismisses as Hedegaard’s “opinions” is in fact a substantial oeuvre publishedin several academic books and articles and laden with facts and references dealing with Islamic ideology, Muslim history and Muslim immigration to Denmark.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has claimed these writings contain sloppy scholarship or wrong references. As Hedegaard puts it, “I am a university-trained historian and take my craft seriously.”

The real criticism of Hedegaard is not about his scholarship – but that he raises difficult and even unpleasant questions.

2. Higgins accuses Hedegaard of “forecast[ing] … a coming war.” However, what Hedegaard forecasts is not his own. He is only reporting what Islamist texts and spokesmen themselves predict and advocate.

3. Higgins writes that Hedegaard “is a major figure in what a study last year by a British group, Hope Not Hate, identified as a global movement of ‘Islamophobic’ writers, bloggers and activists, whose ‘anti-Muslim rhetoric poisons the political discourse, sometimes with deadly effect’.”

“Islamophobia” is a silly neologism intended to vilify anyone who criticizes Islam or even Islamism.

As for “sometimes with deadly effect,” Higgins nastily insinuates that Hedegaard is responsible for deadly attacks on Muslims when, in fact, he was the victim not the perpetrator of an attack.

(Hope not Hate, by the way, lists both the Middle East Forum and me in its Counter-Jihad Report; it flatters me as the “Powerhouse behind the international counter-jihadist movement.”)

In conclusion, Higgins has written a stew of shoddy aspersions of a brave, distinguished and accomplished writer with whom I co-authored an article “Something Rotten in Denmark?” in 2002 and who is currently a colleague at the Middle East Forum.

Shame on Higgins for this article and shame on TheNew York Times for publishing him.

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